1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic clinical thermometer and, more specifically, to such an electronic clinical thermometer, which rapidly and accurately measures the body temperature of the patient.
2. Description of the Related Art
Regular clinical thermometers have two types, namely, the mercury clinical thermometers and the electronic clinical thermometers. A mercury thermometer must be properly disposed of after its service because mercury is severely harmful to the environment. U.S. Pat. No. 6,419,388 B2, entitled xe2x80x9cMedical Thermometerxe2x80x9d is of an electronic type, which comprises a metal tip with an outer contact surface for contacting the tissue of a patient, a temperature sensor mounted within the metal tip and used to produce a signal which represents the temperature of the metal tip (see FIG. 1). When using an electronic clinical thermometer to measure the body temperature of a patient, the probe tip of the electronic thermometer must be kept in close contact with the body of the patient for a certain length of time, for example, about 1xcx9c2 minutes so that accurately test value can be obtained. Because the shell of an electronic clinical thermometer absorbs heat from the probe tip, it takes time to let the temperature level of the probe tip be in balance with the body temperature of the patient.
The present invention has been accomplished to provide a quick response probe for an electronic clinical thermometer, which eliminates the aforesaid drawbacks. It is one object of the present invention to provide an electronic clinical thermometer, which prevents temperature loss during measuring. It is another object of the present invention to provide an electronic clinical thermometer, which enables the temperature sensor to be quickly heated to the saturated status so as to accurately produce a signal indicative of the body temperature of the patient. To achieve these and other objects of the present invention, the electronic clinical thermometer comprises a heat insulator stuffed into a metal tip in one end of the shell thereof to hold down a temperature sensor in the top of the metal tip and two conducting wires, for enabling the temperature sensor to be quickly heated to the saturated status when measuring the body temperature of a patient, so that the signal indicative of the body temperature of the patient can be quickly produced and transmitted from the temperature sensor through the conducting wires to a circuit board inside the shell of the electronic clinical thermometer.